Tagged: best coast

We usually do an Elba Annual in December where we ask people their ‘best of’s’ from throughout the year but seeing as we’ve had a particularly quiet year on here, we decided it probably was best to give it a miss and hopefully get it going again next year.

I did however, want to share my Top 5 albums of the year with you. I am asked each year by Peenko to submit my albums of the year for inclusion in the yearly BAMS (Blogs and Music Sites) list and this year when Lloyd from Peenko realised he’d run out of fingers to count up the albums, he called on me for my ninja spreadsheet skills. That list is still to be announced however, so I thought I’d get my list up before A) I forget and B) The BAMS list spoils my thunder.

Limiting albums to a Top ‘whatever’ is always quite hard I think. It depends on mood or the time of year, so in my Top 5, I could probably interchange about 3 of the 5 that are included below. In fact, in the three weeks since i sent over my albums of the year, I’ve changed the order in my head several times. However, I’ve gone with my original list but a few albums which on any other day would have made my Top 5 were;

You may have noticed that we’ve had a couple of blogs from Chris about books recently. We’re not going for a change of tack, it’s just that we’ve got through that difficult adolescent phase (for the most part) and are finding that we don’t particularly have to please anyone or conform to a certain type of

writing, we can just be who we want to be.

I’m quite enjoying putting the mixtapes together and hopefully a couple of people will give them a listen at some point, we’ve even installed a wee link at the top of the page where all the mixtapes are stored.

The mixtapes were originally going to be weekly but I sometimes find it quite a task to put together each week depending on what I’ve got on and at the end of the day there’s no point in putting undue stress on yourself, something I’m trying to manage both personally, and on the blog.

In which long winded way takes us back to the point of this post. I’ve been really enjoying some albums recently and find myself on NPR quite a lot streaming forthcoming releases so I guess this post is another one of those semi-regular posts that we have which will appear when we deem there to be enough information to post!

First up is the album which along with Lightships has the potential to my album of the summer, who knows, maybe even year. ‘The Only Place’ by Best Coast follows the same patterns and themes of the first album but there’s just something a bit more shiny and polished about it. That’s not to say that because the lo-fi scuzzy-ness has gone that this album is any less charming.

Next up, also on NPR, is the band I used to frequently mix up with Best Coast, Beach House. Coast-Beach-Best…you get the idea. We featured the track ‘Myth’ on our most recent mixtape. You can stream the full album, ‘Bloom’ from the link below.

And finally, a little closer to home, you can hear Glasgow-based French Wives debut album ‘Dream of the Inbetween’ streaming on The 405. This is a really enjoyable album and got my feet tapping under a pile of spreadsheets in the office the other day.

The title says it all really, or maybe it doesn’t actually. If you scroll your mouse down you will see that the last time we posted,

it was still the month of March, and there was over a week left of that month. It’s not the case that we’ve been up to nothing mind you, life gets busy and sadly the things you love get pushed to the side a little bit. After all, it’s more important to be able to put sneakers on your kids’ feet right?!

When I say drought we’re talking strictly in a writing sense, getting the words into my keyboard so that they appear in wordpress and end up on the Elba blog. You see, this is a time issue, pure and simple. It’s not because there is a lack of things to write about, if I could pay myself a lovely salary I’d do it all day but needs must and off to work I go each day.

So here I am, finding time in my complete lack of time, to moan about not having the time to write. Kind of ironic, maybe I’ve just wasted a precious 200 words that could have been better spent giving a lot more attention to some of the things I’m sure I’ll go on to mention.

As I have said, there’s no lack at all of good things to write about. I’ve found an abundance of new things to listen to recently and I’ve also filled in a few gaps with old albums I’ve not ever had the chance or even inclination to listen to at the time. I found that I’m really liking the lo-fi/west coast (USA) type bands at the moment, y’know some of the bands who sounded like the kind of band my brother listened to in the early to mid nineties. Smith Westerns, Ringo Deathstarr, Girls (okay so this ones not just out but I’ve been listening to it for the last year), Lower Dens and have I rekindled my interest with Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Best Coast in anticipation of the former’s new album and latter’s gig at The Arches on the 27th of this month.

Talking of things I’m liking at the moment, I’ve received a couple of really great records in my emails recently that I really must mention.

The first EP in question here is The Whittling EP from Andrew Lindsay and The Coat Hooks. Chock full of jangly guitars and sing-a-long melodies it’s been the perfect listen for me on my way to the office in the morning. The Coat Hooks include, amongst others, Shambles Miller and Matthew of Elba favourites Loch Awe. If you fancy giving it a go, you can head over to their bandcamp where you can purchase either a digital copy of the album for £3 or a nicer wee package including badges, a note and some demos for a couple of quid more.

Knowing of my slight penchant for their music, Johnny Reb have sent me over their first album, or ‘debut exertions’ as they have put it. It was recorded in Portugal with Boz Boorer, him being Morrisey’s guitarist and that, and it will be released through their Bandcamp on April 18th. It really is rather excellent.

Also, if you’ve not yet picked up the Song, By Toad label sampler yet, you really should. It can be downloaded for free over here. My personal favourite is the Lach track. I’m looking forward to hearing that album when it comes out in July.

I’ve not just been hiding away listening to records though, I’ve been to a couple of cracking gigs by Deerhunter and Josh T.Pearson (Skinny Review Here) in the last couple of weeks and rather looking forward to seeing Marina Celeste and Best Coast over the next weeks.

Also coming up on the 21st this month, three days after the official release date, is the Le Reno Amps album launch at The Captain’s Rest. Not only are LRA playing, obviously, it’s a monstrous line-up completed by The Douglas Firs, Super Adventure Club and Galoshins. It will be awesomes!!!! You can stream or buy the album over here!

Anyways, we’ll be back again shortly with more stuff, hopefully in a more timeous manner giving a bit more focus to stuff.